Microsoft is warning users of its Office 365 preview -- the subscription version of Microsoft Office 2013 -- that their 60-day free trial is about to expire.
The software giant has emailed customers, warning them about the end of their free preview, urging them to renew with a paid subscription and explaining what will happen to their accounts and software capabilities if they don't.
"Your subscription to Office 365 Home Premium Preview will expire on Saturday, March 16, 2013," said Microsoft in emails. "To avoid a possible interruption of your subscription service, please renew your subscription by Saturday, March 16, 2013."
The free preview was supposed to last about 60 days, but the Mar. 16 date puts the preview length around two weeks shorter than that.
If preview users don't upgrade to the paid version, their subscription will lapse in exactly the same way that an Office 365 subscriber's account will lapse if they stop paying their $100 annual bill.
All programs in the suite become limited-function. They still allow users to read and print documents already created or sent from another source, but users can't edit or save existing documents or make new ones.
Users won't lose access to documents they've stored in Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage service, but they won't be able to add any more data. They'll still be able to copy it to a local drive.
The only way to get back lost functionality is to buy a copy of Office 2013 -- either the relatively hamstrung standalone version or the subscription-only Office 365 package that comes with more programs and up to five licenses.
Mcrosoft has come under fire for preventing users who upgrade or replace a computer from using their purchased copy of Office 2013 on their new computer, an issue that doesn't affect Office 365.